What is a productive way that students can work together?

Collaborative learning activities allow

students to collaborate and to learn. Three examples are the jigsaw strategy, group investigation, and
double journal.

 Collaborative Learning Examples

Collaborative learning activities can help students to develop problem solving and group work skills.
There are many types of collaborative activities that students can complete. However, teachers should
be prepared to have some talking and movement in the classroom for these activities.

Jigsaw Activity

One simple activity that you can do with a variety of content is the jigsaw activity. The content or
reading assignment is a metaphor for a "puzzle" that students break into smaller pieces to learn.

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"Puzzles" or groups can be small, such as four to six students. Each student will be given a piece of the
puzzle to learn or to investigate. For example, a long reading assignment can be broken into six smaller
"chunks." Each student will take a chunk and become an expert on the content.

2. When the pieces of the "puzzle" are put together or when the group comes back
together, each student will share what he or she learned.

3. After the group has its information organized and compiled, it can share its knowledge
with the class.

Situations to use the jigsaw strategy:

 Covering a great deal of content in a textbook

 Researching a new concept or idea

 Learning new vocabulary from a list

 Learning Greek and Latin Roots

Group Investigation

When a group investigates a new topic, it can be very fun, and the group will take ownership of the topic
and the presentation. The teacher should select a broad topic, such as the Civil War.

8. The group of three-to-five students should narrow the topic down to a topic that they
could research. Then, the group will share the information in around a five-to-ten
minute presentation, depending on the age of the student.

9. The group will need to assign each person a subtopic of the group topic to research.
 10. The group will come back together to share and organize the information.

11. The group will present its information to the class.

Double Entry Journal

A double entry journal can be completed with a pair of students. Students can each make one on their
own. Then, the pair can collaborate and compile their ideas into one double entry journal. Teachers can
use this with novels, textbook reading assignments, news articles, research information, etc.

12. Students need to create a large T on a piece of notebook paper.

13. On one side the student needs to write down interesting or important information from
the reading assignment.

14. On the other side, the student needs to write what he or she thinks about the
information.

15. When the journal is complete, the student needs to share his or her journal with
another student.

16. The students need to compile one journal with information that the pair believes is
important or intriguing.

The jigsaw activity, group investigation and double entry journal are just three ways that students can
collaborate and learn important content. The best part is that students are bouncing ideas off each
other and helping create interesting products.

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

These lessons will give ideas for collaborative lessons as well as give tips on how to make them
successful in a classroom.

Cooperative Exercises and Examples

There are lots of ways to use cooperative learning in your classroom. These links will take
you to other areas of the Starting Point site with resources that can be adapted using the
techniques of cooperative learning.
 Indoor Labs: especially if a written report is involved
 Outdoor Labs: again, especially if they do a written report
 Independent Research Projects: works well with jigsawing, can involve data or models
 Peer Review: works well with pairs
 Jigsaws: this structured format lets each team member prepare separate but related
assignments, then share their work with peer teaching
 Interactive Cases: these open-ended investigations require cooperation
 Team Games: you'll want to add individual accountability
 Interactive Role-Playing: scenarios and roles can be written to ensure that all students
are part of cooperative teams
 Reviewing journal articles: You may want to create interdependence by assigning
several articles and give different ones to different group members.
 Studio Courses: Traditional courses can be reorganized into a more student-centered
model (see also Williamson and Rowe, 2002 and Savarese, 1988 ).

Below, you can browse through examples of cooperative learning that have already been
developed. You can use them "as is" or let them serve as models for you to develop your
own.

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Greenhouse Emissions Reduction Role-Play Exercise part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level
Geoscience:Role Playing:Examples
When the science is so clear, why is it so difficult to make agreements that will reduce our
impact on climate change? This exercise is designed to help students explore that important
question in an active and ...
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